USA vs. Australia: Score and Reaction from 2016 Olympic Men's Basketball

In the first real Olympic test for both teams, Team USA defeated Australia, 98-88, to improve its record to 3-0 in Group A with just two games remaining before the knockout phase begins. 

The Americans entered the game on a roll, winning their first two games against China and Venezuela by a combined 101 points. 

Per ESPN Stats & Info, only three games during Team USA's current 71-game winning streak were decided by five points or less. It looked for a while like this was either going to be a loss or at least another slim margin.

The Ringer provided a GIF of how things appeared to be going in this game before the United States turned it around in the second half:

Australia entered Wednesday's matchup ranked 11th in the FIBA world rankings, though this team was clearly better than that with a roster featuring NBA talent like Matthew Dellavedova, Andrew Bogut and Patty Mills. 

Sam Amick of USA Today even noted there was a point early in the game when all 10 players on the floor had NBA credentials:

The Australians had Team USA out of sorts early, jumping out to a 25-17 lead late in the first quarter, prompting this response from Sports Illustrated's Jeremy Woo:

"

Remember Australia is the first real opponent Team USA has faced as a cohesive unit. Have to deal with adversity together.

— Jeremy Woo (@JeremyWoo) August 10, 2016"

The U.S. eventually settled in and took a 29-27 lead on a three-point bucket from Carmelo Anthony. 

Per Fred Katz of the Norman Transcript, Anthony's go-ahead shot was also a monumental one in his Olympic career:

Anthony was on fire during that first quarter, scoring 14 of the team's 29 points in the opening 10 minutes. He surpassed LeBron James' career scoring mark of 273 points to take over the top spot on the U.S. list and ended the game with 31 points. 

ESPN's Fran Fraschilla posited a theory about why Anthony has had so much Olympic success:

Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports posed an interesting hypothesis that will surely be shot down because there's a stigma against Anthony and anyone who wasn't part of the 1992 Dream Team:

Whatever the reasoning may be, Anthony had it all working for the United States early when it really needed someone to take control and keep things close. 

All credit goes to Australia, though, for never wavering even when it looked like the U.S. was going to make that big run to blow the game wide open as it has done so many times in the past.

The Australians responded with a 10-0 spurt in the second quarter after falling behind, 36-31, to reclaim the lead and warrant a positive response from the Australia Basketball official Twitter account:

At halftime, the United States found itself trailing, 54-49, with a lot of adjustments to make. It went into the locker room shooting just 37 percent overall, including Kevin Durant going 2-of-10. Australia was shooting 68 percent from the field, which only compounded the problems.

NBC Olympics captured the mood of Americans watching their team at halftime:

Whatever head coach Mike Krzyzewski said at intermission seemed to wake his team up, as the U.S. started the third quarter on a 9-0 run to take a 58-54 lead after just over two minutes had passed. 

Again, though, the Australian team never looked overwhelmed. It trailed by three heading into the fourth quarter after Draymond Green was fouled while hitting a layup, but the pace of the game was still conducive to the Australians. 

Michael Lee of The Vertical did wonder why Coach K wasn't taking advantage of two of his most opportunistic players in an effort to frustrate Australia:

While Krzyzewski did not employ that strategy, he was forced to make decisions primarily due to DeAndre Jordan and DeMarcus Cousins' foul trouble. The U.S. was more efficient playing a smaller lineup, which afforded Anthony the opportunity to sit behind the three-point line waiting for his moments. 

It was an effective strategy for Team USA. Anthony delivered one of the key shots halfway through the fourth quarter, nailing another three-pointer to give his team an 83-76 advantage.

The problem for Australia wasn't that its offense stopped making shots, but the defense that was so disruptive early eventually wore down against a bigger and more physical United States team. Mills was terrific, dropping 30 points, and Dellavedova had a team-high 11 assists and six rebounds. 

Kyrie Irving hit the dagger, nearly replicating his heroic three-point shot from Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals to give Team USA a 93-86 lead with one minute and 37 seconds remaining. 

Anthony and Irving were the heroes for the United States in the final frame, as the duo combined to score the team's first 26 points in the quarter. It was that kind of game for Team USA, constantly battling its own mistakes and a tenacious Australian team that did not go away. 

Even though the final score favored the U.S., Australia sent a message to the rest of the world that it will be dangerous as these Olympics roll on. 

The U.S. will happily take the win, but Krzyzewski is not going to be satisfied with the effort on either side of the ball from his squad. They will go back to the drawing board in preparation for Friday's showdown with Serbia. 

Postgame Reaction

Despite the strong effort, per Les Carpenter of the Guardian, Bogut told reporters he was not happy with the way things played out for Australia: "This was the best team in the world, we are better than them and we thought we should have been in a position to grind out an even closer game. We’re disappointed, we lost."

David Andersen tried to take a more positive approach to this game, per Carpenter: "It’s good for us, it makes us tougher, it makes us harder so the next time we meet them we play even better. For us it was putting everything out there, putting it all out there. We just didn’t finish it off."

Also from Carpenter, Krzyzewski commended Australia by saying it "has played the best basketball in the Olympics."

United States assistant coach Tom Thibodeau added that his team would "prefer to win in blowouts but sometimes it doesn’t work that way. We had to fight through it. We have to fight different ways to win games."

Anthony got the chance to play hero and did not allow past Olympic failure to haunt him as Australia kept the game close, per Amick: 

"

I can tell you, I wasn’t thinking about (the loss to Argentina in) 2004 man. I was out there playing tonight. That experience – it is what it is. We accepted it. We know that feeling, and we don’t want to experience that feeling anymore.

Being in those types of games, and taking advantage of different possessions, and understanding the difference of the game – time and score – and making plays. 

"

The U.S. desperately needed all of those plays Anthony made. Otherwise, it would have said goodbye to its long winning streak and dealt with questions about winning another gold medal.